


Inexorable Conclusion

by MistressPandora



Series: Gods of War [2]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Swordfighting, That's not a euphemism, some strong language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressPandora/pseuds/MistressPandora
Summary: Lord John Grey had no desire whatsoever to kill his oldest friend. But with his commission reinstated and orders to apprehend Jamie Fraser to carry out, it seems he has no other choice.
Relationships: Jamie Fraser & Lord John Grey
Series: Gods of War [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653670
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Inexorable Conclusion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drivablecar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drivablecar/gifts).



> I have been searching for this story line for months, since I first began the Gods of War series. While all of the stories in that series still function independently, this is the first one chronologically. This is how our heroes came together. My sincerest thanks to [drivablecar](https://beefsteakclub.tumblr.com/) for making the discovery! 
> 
> This story fills my Bad Things Happen Bingo square: **Secret Revealed.**

Lord John Grey knew better than to try to sneak up on Jamie. He’d hoped perhaps that age would have dulled his old friend’s senses, but of course no such luck. In all fairness, a straightforward approach would likely have resulted in him being shot in the face, so perhaps he’d made the right choice. 

He didn’t actually want to kill the man after all. But trying to reason with Jamie Fraser when he’d made up his mind about something… he might as well convince the sun to cease its predictable course across the sky. Jamie wouldn’t say _why_ he was so hell-bent on this rebellion, just that he was. Something about _inevitability_ and _not like the Forty-Five_. Grey had no earthly idea what he was on about.

And he didn’t have the chance to find out. Grey had stood, drawing his sword. “You leave me no choice, Fraser. I _have_ to arrest you. Don’t you see? You’re a traitor to the Crown. You’ve broken your oath of loyalty. I am duty-bound.”

Fraser had likewise risen and drawn his sword from its scabbard, metal singing against metal. He held it loosely in his left hand. “I dinna take it personally, John. I am sorry it has come to this.” His voice was dark with genuine regret.

“As am I, my friend. _En guarde_.”

Their first few strikes were tentative, their hearts not really in the fight. Slowly they danced around each other, each gauging the other’s skill and style. Friendly chess games, verbal repartee, and battles of wills notwithstanding, they’d never crossed blades in combat before. And they truly did not want to be here now. But Grey was bound by his duty and Fraser by his conviction. Or something less definable but no less resolute. 

The tiptoeing had gone on long enough. Grey saw an opening and he took it, spinning to come through strong on Fraser’s right, his weaker side. He drew his dagger on the spin, slashed with the sword at Jamie’s middle. Fraser swatted his blade away with the base of his own. Grey went immediately into a second spin with his dagger angled toward Fraser’s thigh, the skirts of his crimson great coat swirling about him. Jamie brought the tip of his blade toward the dirt, blocking Grey’s dagger and pausing his assault.

“John, don’t,” Jamie said. He was pleading.

“I am sorry, Jamie.” Their swords clashed, Jamie’s longer reach forcing Grey backward, spinning him around. The man hit like a charging bull, jarred Grey’s bones. He spun again, thrust his sword behind him, hoping to sneak under Jamie’s defenses. But all Jamie was fighting with was defense. He wasn’t attacking. Christ, if he’d put forth just a modicum of effort, he’d have Grey beat. But no, Fraser had meant it when he said he didn’t want this. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Grey said. He wasn’t even sure Fraser could hear him. 

Grey turned again, slashed high at Jamie’s throat. If he could use his smaller size to the advantage—but no. Fraser ducked, pivoted on one heel, and backhanded Grey across the cheek. He rolled with the blow, came back up with his sword ready to block the next swipe.

Fraser growled. Their blades met in a clash between them, and he forced Grey several steps back against a wall. The force of Jamie’s shove, stopped so abruptly, whipped his head back and he cracked his skull against the cold stones. They were rough on his back, he could feel them clawing at the layers of his uniform, biting his hair. His own blade was sharp and hard against his throat, driven there by Jamie’s sword. The grip on Grey’s wrist was hot iron. Jesus, when had Fraser changed sword hands? John could feel the power in Fraser’s body in that one point of contact between them. It was raw and gargantuan and if Fraser were truly trying, there was no way John could have overpowered him. He was skilled and strong in his own right, but if Jamie were to unleash that berserker rage of his Viking ancestors…

“I’m begging ye,” Fraser said, and Grey believed that he was. His breath was warm on Grey’s face. “Please dinna do this. It would break me to kill ye. Please.” 

“You and me both, sir.” Grey threw a punch with his dagger hand, succeeded in driving Jamie back enough to swing his sword. Jamie caught his left hand with the dagger and shoved it away. It was an aggressive defense, but even still, it was a defense. Fraser hacked at Grey’s blade and in what looked like a reflexive lapse in restraint, swung at Grey’s head. It went wide though, either by design or misstep, Grey would never know.

Anger rose in John’s breast and he took a careless slash that Jamie parried easily. His friend had one hand on his hilt, one on the blade, wielding it more like a quarterstaff than a sword, blocking several of John’s fruitless attacks. He jabbed the blunt end of the hilt at John’s hip, pulling back on the blow at the last instant. It would be merely a bruise rather than a fractured bone. John aimed his saber for Jamie’s back, but his odd, two-handed grip allowed him to bring his blade up behind him, stopping the blow.

John let his sword slide off Jamie’s, batted his arm away with the hilt, and dropped into a spin that sliced his dagger through the meat of Jamie’s thigh. 

Fraser let out a pained grunt and a hiss, sacrificing a few feet of ground. 

“First blood,” Grey panted. “Will you yield?”

“It’s nae duel, _a charaid_. I canna do that,” he said, shaking his head regretfully.

Sweat poured down John’s back but he ignored it. “Is it to be to the death, then?” _Please, God, say no._

Everything between them changed in that moment. Jamie charged at Grey, parried one last, desperate attack, and went on the offensive. Yards of ground Fraser claimed, tearing after John with long and sure-footed strides. He made slash after slash, his large body graceful and powerful and—God damn it—still breathtakingly beautiful. 

Grey retreated, dodging blow after blow after blow. Ducking. Stumbling backward— _Christ, don’t fall!_ Whatever offensive advantage he could have contrived by being smaller was obliterated by Jamie’s odd, left-handed form. It was impossible to keep up. Dagger, saber, duck, leap back. Terrified to blink because if he did, if he lost sight of the man even that long, he’d surely be gutted.

Fraser came around in a mad spin, changing his grip on the hilt of his sword _yet again_ , thrusting the point at Grey’s middle. Through one last, hopeless gambit, Grey turned his hip at the last moment, presenting a narrower target, capturing Jamie’s blade between his own sword and dagger. His hands ached, arms going numb at the elbows from the sheer pounding he’d taken through his weapons.

And then Fraser closed one large hand around the blade of Grey’s sword and wrenched it from his grip, popping his fingers and straining his wrist. 

_Oh. Fuck_. This was it. Twenty years of precarious friendship, of a loyalty to one another borne from honor or unavoidable circumstance. All leading to this bloody, inevitable conclusion.

The point of Fraser’s blade stopped inches from Grey’s throat. The man who had been his oldest friend. The man he’d broken bread with. The man he’d loved so fiercely that when Grey had believed him dead, had wed his widow just for the sake of protecting that which Jamie Fraser had held most dear. _This man_ was about to kill him. 

Grey swallowed, suppressed the wince when the movement brought his throat into contact with the tip of Fraser’s sword. He stared into Jamie’s eyes, boring into him with a mad fury over his sword arm. 

His entire body trembled with fatigue, not with fear. _Better that it should have gone this way,_ Grey thought. Tears burnt his eyes, but John refused to indulge in them. He wouldn’t make this harder than it had to be. “I will not yield,” Grey whispered. “But I do forgive you.” 

There was pain and regret in Jamie’s eyes. There had been since they’d begun. But there was something else there, too. A decision. Resolution where before had only been conflict.

Grey tightened his grip on his dagger. He wouldn’t drop it. If he dropped it, then Jamie would be a murderer. They both held onto their honor this way.

Jamie took two long strides backward, shifted Grey’s confiscated sword so he held it by the hilt. Grey did not move.

With a cry of rage, Jamie thrust both swords down into the earth, where they stuck fast. John stared, transfixed as his friend covered his face with both hands. Jamie’s broad shoulders shook, whether from exhaustion or fury or anguish, Grey could not tell. 

He dropped his dagger to the dirt with a dull clang as it struck a stone. 

Then Jamie’s strong arms were around John, enveloping him in a bitter smell of sweat and crushing embrace. “I canna do it, John,” Jamie said, voice breaking. “Ye must listen to me. Please. I ken it will sound mad, but ye must listen. For whatever faith remains between us. I beg ye, John.”

Jamie still held him, and it took Grey some time to find his voice. At last, beyond the shock of still being alive, of being held so tightly he could scarcely breathe, he found it. “Al-alright. Alright, I’ll listen.”

Rather than lead Grey to a fallen log or a large rock upon which to sit, Jamie took hold of his arms and dragged them both to sit on the ground right there. They were both still breathing heavily from the fight. Grey stared intently at Jamie, entirely transfixed by the war within his friend. Jamie was never one to give away his emotions, his thoughts—never. While Grey could only make out some of what he saw, there was no doubt that Jamie was about to share something monumental.

“I need ye to listen. I need ye to hear what I say and I need ye to withhold yer judgement until I’ve reached the end.” Jamie finally met Grey’s eyes. He was absolutely serious.

Grey took a deep breath, braced himself for whatever Fraser might throw at him, and gave him a slow nod of agreement. 

For the next hour and a half, Jamie spoke and John listened. Had it been any other man at all, Grey would have written off his tale as the ravings of a madman. But this wasn’t _any man_. This was Jamie Fraser. Grey had seen him insensible with rage, misguided, impulsive. But the Jamie Fraser in front of him now was thoroughly in possession of all of his faculties.

Words like _stone circles_ and _fire feasts_ and _time travel_ and _future_ and _world wa_ r and _American Revolution_ and _Constitution_ tumbled from Jamie’s lips, one after another. He told stories of the time before the last Jacobite rising, of witch trials and a British army captain named Randall. And ancestors. And descendents. Of attempts to stop the Forty-Five. Of how _this_ rebellion would end.

Grey listened. He nodded to show he was following the thread of the conversation but kept his mouth shut. He and Claire had talked about this, briefly, while they were married. He’d not believed her and she’d not pressed the issue. But here it was laid out for him. And as he watched Jamie share tale after tale, Grey began to realize that his friend was revealing his family’s deepest secret. Everything began to fall into place. All of the odd things he’d heard Claire or Brianna say. The urgency with which Brianna had argued with John for the chance to speak with her brother one last time. It all made sense.

Sweet. Jesus. He was telling the truth.

“The colonies willna be safe for ye and Willie,” Jamie said, his voice going hoarse. There was a note of pleading. “Ye must leave. For yer own sakes, John. Ye must take our son back to England and stay there. Dinna come back.”

Grey scrubbed a hand over his jaw. There were no words, nothing he could say in response to the enormity of what Jamie had just shared with him. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared down at the red sleeves of his great coat. “Could we stop it, do you think?” His uniform, his duty required him to ask the question, but Grey couldn’t be certain what answer his heart wanted.

Jamie shook his head. “Nay. We canna change things. I tried to stop the Forty-Five and I couldna. And even if we could stop this revolution… John, this will be the country my daughter and my wife grow up in. I couldna be responsible for the loss of that.”

“Jesus.” Grey’s eyes widened and he blew out a long breath. “This is… Jamie, this is a lot to take on faith.”

“Aye, tis.” Fraser reached across the narrow distance between them and took his hand. “John, I told ye all this in the hope that ye’d understand. I canna be on the losing side of history again. And I canna let ye and Willie suffer the same fate I suffered.” His rough hand squeezed Grey’s tight. “Ye and that damned brother of yers must use whatever influence ye have to get past the blockade.”

Grey stared down at their joined hands. “No,” he whispered. He had no notion where the refusal had come from, but there it was. 

“What?”

“No,” he repeated and looked up to meet Jamie’s eyes. God, they were beautiful eyes. After everything, after mourning him, after being beaten by him, after all the _shit_ that seemed to fall between them, John still loved him. Even if Jamie would never return the feeling. Even if it disgusted him. Grey still loved Jamie to the very marrow of his bones. “No, we won’t leave.”

Jamie’s lips pursed and his brows drew down in a scowl. Grey put up a hand to stave off whatever he was about to say.

“There is no way Hal would permit me to leave. He reinstated my fucking commission for God’s sake.” Grey shook his head. “No. We’ll stay.”

“But, John—”

“At what point have our lives ever been enriched by being on opposite sides? Hmm?”

Jamie sputtered, made to protest, but Grey plunged on ahead.

“At absolutely no point in our violent, complicated, abysmally contentious history have either of us ever been content to be enemies.” Grey shook his head. “No. We have risked and sacrificed too much for the sake of our friendship over the years for us to turn our backs on each other now.”

“But Willie willna—”

“Willie is quite fond of his step mother. And of the colonies. I would have to put him in irons and drag him bodily from the continent to get him to leave.” John gave Jamie a wry smile. “I cannot imagine where he gets his stubbornness.”

Jamie chuckled and nodded, acknowledging both the truth of the statement and conceding the jab at himself. “Aye, that’s true.” His face grew serious again. “If ye stay… I canna let ye be in danger. We weather it together, aye?”

Grey nodded, a warm smile spreading across his face. “Yes. Together. It will be safer for all of us that way, I think.” He sighed and looked down at himself, at his uniform. Even now it was becoming a symbol of oppression. It was the uniform of Jamie’s enemy. Again. As always. There was no future in which Jamie and John would be equals, could have total trust between them so long as he wore it. 

Without giving himself a chance to think about it, Grey stood up, shrugged the coat off and dropped it to the dirt. His tricorn had fallen off in the fight, probably when Jamie had shoved him against that stone wall. But he removed his officer’s gorget and dropped it onto the heap of his coat. He offered a hand to Jamie. “For the sake of our families, then.”

A smile broke out across Jamie’s face as he accepted John’s hand and stood. They did not let go of each other. “Aye. For our family.”


End file.
